Message Boards

By Logan Horsford and Kevin Pietrzak

This document makes several premises.

1. The message boards are a tool for the developer. Not a meeting place for the fans, they can do that in the game. Not a place to rant and talk about off topic issues, that is what fan sites boards can be for.

2. Not everyone has anything relevant or useful to say. A quick sampling of various message boards shows that some people have never had an intelligent thought, nor will they.

The board is a great place to mine ideas, because the people posting there were so motivated by something, that they remembered after playing, to use the boards to post. This does not mean that everything needs to be used, or even taken under consideration. But when it becomes evident that everything post is totally ignored, it becomes a turn off.

A good working example is Verant, and their most recently release "Good Thing"TM, the Bazaar. Now they knew about this forever, they even promised it with Luclin. They must have known when it would go live, because I would hope they have that much understanding, but it was not talked up on their boards. The developers *should* have have a mouthpiece a month ago saying it was coming, and taken the spam of literally thousands of players, picked out the ideas they already had done, and said "Yes, this is a good idea, we will do it!". Some players would cheer, some would boo, but ALL would feel "Hey, they listened, I have a good idea, I will post it". This simple act of saying they would do things already coded, but someone suggested, would generate a flood of ideas, mostly horrible, some impractical, a few interesting, and maybe 1 or 2 "killer app ideas" that would allow them to shamelessly addict even more people. Better still, ALL of these ideas are free!! No royalties, no development time, nothing, just free unsolicited brainstorming.

4. People who are not customers may read the board but may not post. After the game has been released, if someone hasn't even bothered to purchase the game is their opinion important? Too rarely to consider. With the message boards, your main concern is your current customers. By using this system, people considering purchasing your game will only see thoughtful posts by intelligent people. This couldn't hurt in selling games. If you were, on the other hand, contemplating purchasing Everquest and went to their board in the old days when it was known as 'Whineplay' do you think this would have encouraged you or discouraged you from purchasing the game? This allows all posters to be tied to their active account.

5. It is very important for people to know that they may get banned for posting something very inappropriate (racial slurs, etc) however they will still be able to play the game. We don't want to scare our customers to death. Losing your ability to gripe on the boards is one thing - losing a years worth of playing time (and the developer any future revenue) is quite another.

6. It is advisable to have enough moderators (perhaps three at various times) so that the potential for developing 'favorites' is lowered. Some people may feel that this makes the board into a 'popularity contest' - this is true. People who cite useful things will be more popular and read by the developers, people who rant incoherently and spew hatred will be 'unpopular'.

7. The assigning of points (positive and negative) must be *very easy* for the board moderators to do. They shouldn't have to go to various other screens, suffer long loading times, etc. It should be a simple click and done. Failure to do this will result in far fewer posts being rated than otherwise would. It should be possible to rate posts several times and have the various ratings averaged. For example, if the moderator thought the post was merely 'ok' and gives one point, a developer thought it was hot because it gave him what he thought was a great idea and gives it one hundred points and two other developers read it and gave it three points each (not thinking it was so hot) that post would now be worth a total of 26 points. (I round down because I'm evil.)

The main idea of this is to make a system where the developers have easy access to the better posts while the less meaningful posts quietly disappear.

Though a little bit of programming is required for this to work, it will pay off in the long run.

Initially, moderators will be quite busy but later their work load will decrease, rather than increase.

First, a system of points will be set up. Developers can decide on their own system of points, this one is merely given as an example.

Posters will either gain or lose points for things they post. The amount of points gained or lost can be posted to let people know what is expected of them if they lose points or to reinforce positive behavior in the case of gaining points. If the developer is squeamish about hurting someone's feelings, they may choose to instead make a publicly accessed list of things points can be gained and lost for.

The number of points the poster has dictates their allowed frequency of posting.

Example:

+1500 points (maximum): Posts by this person are considered by the developers to be worth their weight in gold. Developers may receive an automated e-mail saying that someone in this point range has posted. To get above 1499 points may require a developer to check a box or something showing that this poster is considered good enough that they actually want to get notified when they post. Chances are excellent that there would be very few (less than a dozen) of these folks.

+1000 points: Posts by this person are considered exemplary. Their name is in a special color or some other way of stating that this person is special. To get above 999 points may require a human to check a box or something showing that not only is the person posting regularly good ideas but some ideas worthy of special merit. Keep in mind that the 1000 or 1500 mark is NOT a reward for the person but more of a way for the developers to take note of the person. If the developer does not wish to be seen as 'playing favorites', the special stars and name colors might only be accessible by developers. The community itself would only see a normal name. It is perhaps advisable for the players not to be able to see their totals.

+500 points: This person is a good solid poster. At this level and above, the person may post once per minute as has become the standard. The automatic point ticker (an optional thing which would give one point per day just for being around for awhile) cannot give points to anyone who has five hundred or more. Thus, someone who joined the game on day one then decided to finally get around posting 501 days later (since it requires an active account to post and possibly to accumulate points if nothing else he's been giving you money consistently) would have 500 points.

+0 points: This person has just started posting. They can post once per five minutes. Think about what you're going to say. At this level on up, there is no maximum posting length. Some people will just have started playing the game and post a long missive on various aspects of the game that is useful and should be read.

-50 points: This person is beginning to set up a consistent pattern of poor posts. We want them to have a longer time to think before posting. Their post time is increased to once per hour.

-100 points: Their posting time is increased to once per 24 hour time period.

-500 points: This person fails to say anything useful every day they have the opportunity to speak. Their posting time is increased to once per month.

-1000 points: Unless the person really says some slanderous bad things on a regular basis getting here takes quite a bit of effort. They can post once per quarter (3 months).

-1500 points: This person has nothing to say that anyone is interested in hearing. By continuing to have them able to post at all we are merely throwing good money after bad. That person is banned from ever posting again.

Things you can gain points for:

Saying anything that is considered witty, humorous, useful or just 'good' by the developers or moderators. A simple 1 to 5 star (with the corresponding 1 to 5 points) is an easy way for moderators to quickly rate a post. They could have a large happy face after the normal ones (worth 10 or 25 etc) points for posts that blow moderators away. The head moderator , Customer Service head or developers would also have the ability to just enter a number if desired (or they can stick with the 1-5 stars). This would allow them to pick an outstanding post and elevate the poster quickly through the ranks. It would be advisable not to move someone up more than one category at a time. These points help the developers to establish patterns.

Things you can lose points for:

Saying 'first post', 'bump', whining, flaming, run on sentences, bad grammar, 'd33d sp33k', asking why they lost points on a post, saying they were quitting but posting why they were quitting (I recommend using the big button on those - people who really quit don't go to boards to post why), saying that they stopped playing a long time ago but still come to the boards (loser ), etc. (Should people be punished for bad grammar? If it hinders the conveyance of ideas or causes the moderator to say 'he should get points taken off for bad grammar, then yes! Is this prejudice against the ignorant? Yes. Do they have anything to say that you really need to hear? Chances are not - that's why we call them uneducated and ignorant.) For this, I envision a simple 1 to 5 unhappy faces. Following them is one large unhappy face. That one would be negative ten (or twenty-five, etc) points. That's for extraordinarily bad posts. It is a good idea to have clearly defined examples posted so that curious folk know what to avoid as well as giving the moderators a handy guideline to reference at need.

The outcome:

The entire reason for programming in the happy faces and all is to get a positive and more importantly useful outcome for the developer. Once players discover that posting a string of 'first post' or 'not first post but I just saw this thread' one day can result in their suddenly losing 50 points the next day after the moderators read all of the points, then in a couple weeks (when they gain the ability to post again - remember they automatically gain one point per day unless they are banned or no longer have an active account) they may have modified their postings.

The developers seem to underrate the sheer enormity of the posting that will take place after a game is released. They look at the fifty or hundred happy players they have prior to game release and think it will always be like that. How wrong they are. You have to plan on being able to deal with ten thousand or a hundred thousand people posting.

Either way, you will have lost - one way or another - all of the posts that were negative, useless, etc. Future customers checking out your boards may well comment on how polite everyone is, how few of the postings actually don't contain useful information, etc.

Logan

PS: Besides - once the board is programmed, it could become a stand alone product!